Chicago Shootings Spike 49% In November Despite Strict Gun Laws

There were 192 shootings in Chicago throughout the month of November - a 49 percent increase from a year earlier - according to police records obtained by the Chicago Tribune.

In November of 2011, Chicago recorded 129 shootings compared to the 192 shootings this November. Police records also reveal that shootings increased more than 11 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 compared with a year earlier.

Total homicides in Chicago rose to 480 for the first eleven months of 2012; a 21 percent increase from last year. On November 30, 2012, there were four fatal shootings within the city. These murders brought the homicide total to 38 for the month, just above the 37 recorded in November of last year.

Despite having some of the strictest gun laws in the country, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans on restricting gun ownership further by banning individuals with a violent misdemeanor conviction from getting a gun permit for five years. The mayor also hopes to ban convicted felons from ever owning a gun.

Emanuel's intentions are no doubt well intentioned, but like many cities with strict gun laws, the disarming of law-abiding citizens doesn't remove guns from the hands of those who wish to do harm. On the contrary, it often leaves innocent victims vulnerable to criminals.

CNSNews.com previously reported that a gun-rights group said that Mayor Emanuel bears some responsibility for the murder rate because of the strict gun-control laws there:

"Rahm Emanuel has some blood on his hands," said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, in a statement.

"He and the city council have done everything possible to prevent law-abiding Chicago residents from exercising their restored Second Amendment rights in the two years since the Supreme Court's landmark McDonald ruling."

In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against a handgun ban in the city of Chicago in McDonald v. Chicago.

Four days later however, the Chicago City Council adopted the Responsible Gun Owners Ordinance. This requires prospective gun owners to take a firearm safety course at a gun range in order to obtain a permit to own a gun in a home. The city also placed a virtual ban on gun ranges.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says that the Chicago City Council has been blocking Chicagoans from obtaining handguns and range-training; the result being that law-abiding citizens are left defenseless.